SACRAMENTO, CA - When student scores on California’s SAT-9 exam were released this summer, Governor Gray Davis quickly took credit for the incremental increase in average scores in some grades. According to Davis, “Our reforms are working.” In particular, Davis claimed that “Scores are going up, but that’s only because--for the first time ever--we are holding schools accountable for their scores.” Trouble is, Davis’s accountability program
holds few public schools accountable and allows many of the worst schools to escape completely.

Under Davis’s Public School Accountability Act (PSAA), passed by the Legislature last year, underperforming
schools are subject to a series of requirements which include the hiring of an external evaluator, devising a
school improvement plan, and increasing test scores by a minimal percentage. Schools meeting their performance goals may receive rewards of up to $150 per student enrolled in the school. Schools failing to meet their performance goals could be forced to allow students to attend another school, be turned into a charter school, be assigned an outside management team, have their teachers reassigned, be reorganized, or be closed down. The hitch: the program is very limited and voluntary.

In 1999-2000, out of California’s approximately 8,000 schools, 3,144 were designated as underperforming based on the SAT-9 scores. Yet, only 430 low-performing schools, less than 15 percent, are subject to the
provisions of the PSAA. In other words, more than 2,700 low-performing schools escaped the PSAA’s
accountability net. Further, as of May 2000, only 200 school improvement plans had been approved by the
California Board of Education.

The 2000-01 state budget adds funding for another 430 schools to be subject to the PSAA, but that still
leaves more than two-thirds of low-performing schools unconstrained by any accountability requirements. The
most disturbing aspect of the Davis accountability program is the method by which schools are chosen to
participate.

The program uses the Academic Performance Index (API), the state’s school ranking system, to make its choices. The API ranks schools on a 1-to-10 scale (10 being the highest ranking), based on schools’ student SAT-9 scores. Low-performing schools are defined as those schools with a ranking of five or below. Rather than
give priority to the very worst schools in the state, Davis’s program allows schools that are only slightly or moderately below average to have an equal chance to participate.

Thus, the number of schools with a five, four, and three ranking that applied to the Davis program and were accepted totaled 251. In contrast, 277 schools with a rock-bottom ranking of one applied to the program but were rejected. Add to the 277 another 269 schools with a number-one ranking that didn’t even apply to the program. This means that a full 546 of the lowest ranking California public schools are not subject to any of the PSAA’s accountability measures.

Despite its claims, Gray Davis’s Swiss-cheese program falls far short of bringing true accountability to the
state’s public schools. A much better alternative is the plan of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to give school-choice
vouchers to students in low-performing public schools. This plan empowers parents and forces schools to make
reforms in order to retain students. What California needs is competition, not elaborate public-relations
schemes masquerading as real education reform.

- Lance T. Izumi